72
Heike Jensen, Jac sm Kee, Gayathry Venkiteswaran, and Sonia Randhawa
subtlest censorship is denying feminist knowledge a visible role in the exercise of
power. The state, Western and non-Western, rules through privileging androcentric
knowledge as the basis for governance. ”
45
The Malaysian state did try to encroach on the Internet to bring it more in line
with the tight restrictions on “ traditional ” media. This effort has led to a situation in
which the Internet is free from censorship only from the point of view of Internet law
and, as ONI found, free from systematic Internet fi ltering.
46 Meanwhile, existing and
non-Internet-specifi c laws such as the Sedition Act,
47 Offi cial Secrets Act,
48 Internal
Security Act,
49 and Defamation Act
50 have been used to restrict the kinds of content
and speech that are allowed online. However, given the laws ’ reputation as tools of
state repression and intimidation, their application was swiftly critiqued (and amplifi ed over the Internet) by civil-society actors as constituting a breach of the initial
promise of a censorship-free Internet.
This response presented a dilemma for the state, augmented by new and irrefutable
evidence that the leading political group itself was actually at stake. The 2008 general
elections in Malaysia saw the ruling coalition lose two-thirds of its majority in Parliament for the fi rst time since the nation ’ s independence. The Internet was credited
with playing a signifi cant role in the outcome of this election, providing a relatively
freer and more independent avenue for information exchange and dissemination, and
even fund-raising.
51 This signaled a time of transformation, in which the established
social order was threatened by a new form of political engagement that appeared to
reject familiar race-based politics.
It is at such points of status and boundary anxieties that the policing of sexuality
becomes pronounced, so that a restoration of the symbolic cohesion and social order
is attempted through reinstating the integrity of the material and sexed body, with its
accompanying morality discourse. The apparent “ free fl ow ” of the Internet has become
increasingly scrutinized and regulated vis- à -vis the subject of sexuality. Two major
state strategies can be identifi ed in this regard, to which we turn in the next section.
Sexualizing Censorship and Surveillance
The fi rst strategy consisted of a consolidation of state power over the Internet through
a reconfi guration of the government machinery responsible. In 2009 newly elected
Prime Minister Mohd Najib Razak formed the Ministry of Information, Communications, and Culture (KPKK). The communications sector was removed from the Ministry
of Energy, Water, and Communications, and merged with the highly powerful Ministry of Information and, interestingly, the Ministry of Unity, Culture, Arts, and Heritage. This change clearly signaled that information and communications technology
(ICT) was no longer seen as primarily a matter of infrastructure as it had been in the
late 1990s. Instead, its role in shaping the nation and its internal boundaries through
Heike Jensen, Jac sm Kee, Gayathry Venkiteswaran, and Sonia Randhawa
subtlest censorship is denying feminist knowledge a visible role in the exercise of
power. The state, Western and non-Western, rules through privileging androcentric
knowledge as the basis for governance. ”
45
The Malaysian state did try to encroach on the Internet to bring it more in line
with the tight restrictions on “ traditional ” media. This effort has led to a situation in
which the Internet is free from censorship only from the point of view of Internet law
and, as ONI found, free from systematic Internet fi ltering.
46 Meanwhile, existing and
non-Internet-specifi c laws such as the Sedition Act,
47 Offi cial Secrets Act,
48 Internal
Security Act,
49 and Defamation Act
50 have been used to restrict the kinds of content
and speech that are allowed online. However, given the laws ’ reputation as tools of
state repression and intimidation, their application was swiftly critiqued (and amplifi ed over the Internet) by civil-society actors as constituting a breach of the initial
promise of a censorship-free Internet.
This response presented a dilemma for the state, augmented by new and irrefutable
evidence that the leading political group itself was actually at stake. The 2008 general
elections in Malaysia saw the ruling coalition lose two-thirds of its majority in Parliament for the fi rst time since the nation ’ s independence. The Internet was credited
with playing a signifi cant role in the outcome of this election, providing a relatively
freer and more independent avenue for information exchange and dissemination, and
even fund-raising.
51 This signaled a time of transformation, in which the established
social order was threatened by a new form of political engagement that appeared to
reject familiar race-based politics.
It is at such points of status and boundary anxieties that the policing of sexuality
becomes pronounced, so that a restoration of the symbolic cohesion and social order
is attempted through reinstating the integrity of the material and sexed body, with its
accompanying morality discourse. The apparent “ free fl ow ” of the Internet has become
increasingly scrutinized and regulated vis- à -vis the subject of sexuality. Two major
state strategies can be identifi ed in this regard, to which we turn in the next section.
Sexualizing Censorship and Surveillance
The fi rst strategy consisted of a consolidation of state power over the Internet through
a reconfi guration of the government machinery responsible. In 2009 newly elected
Prime Minister Mohd Najib Razak formed the Ministry of Information, Communications, and Culture (KPKK). The communications sector was removed from the Ministry
of Energy, Water, and Communications, and merged with the highly powerful Ministry of Information and, interestingly, the Ministry of Unity, Culture, Arts, and Heritage. This change clearly signaled that information and communications technology
(ICT) was no longer seen as primarily a matter of infrastructure as it had been in the
late 1990s. Instead, its role in shaping the nation and its internal boundaries through